Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Hack the Mitsubishi Outlander SUV, Shut Off Alarm Remotely (helpnetsecurity.com)
Reader Orome1 writes: Mitsubishi Outlander, a popular hybrid SUV sold around the world, can be easily broken into by attackers exploiting security weaknesses in the setup that allows the car to be remotely controlled via an app. After discovering the SSID and the pre-shared key, they connected to a static IP address within a network's subnet, and this allowed them to sniff the Wi-Fi connection and send messages to the car. Through these messages they were able to turn the car's lights, air conditioning and heating on and off, change the charging programme and, most importantly, to disable the car's anti-theft alarm.
Who ever thought of this should get a Nobel Prize.
In their effort to make things ever easier for consumers, and to improve time-to-market, manufacturers skip the most basic security best practices.
This will kill the IOT market in general. Ever more gadgets with ever weaker security.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
They've been at the top of the list of "Japanese car makers that won't be around much longer" for a few years now. So few of them are sold in the US currently that I was starting to think perhaps they quietly went under or were absorbed by Toyota. Their long running Lando Calrissian approach to car manufacturing can only last so long, really.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I remember about 8 years ago, mentioning that the proposed smart cars the industry was crowing about would be a hacker's paradise, because of compounding costs of manufacture driving security based design out the window.
Seems I was right, despite all the loud objections I got that called me crazy. Fancy that. /shameless self promotion
Really, these recent reports of hackable cars all fail for the same reasons: The car's internal network is presumed secure, instead of presumed hostile. This ignores the primary rule of security-- if you can get local access, the security should be assumed broken.
Ideally, the data being sent through the internal network should be encrypted with unique keys between components, initially seeded at the factory with unique one time pads. The wifi network should be isolated completely from the internal network as well, and any instruction given should have a handshake challenge before being accepted.
All of those things will increase the costs of the vehicle considerably though, which is why none of the manufacturers are doing it.
It will require federal legislation to impose regulations for vehicle safety before that happens.
Every time I read about these, it strikes me that it all goes down to poor system design. The computers and functions dealing with the operation of the car need to be isolated from the entertainment systems, including WiFi, at least so far as inputs are concerned. Apps that allow the user to unlock the doors or start the engine, WiFi and OnStar systems that allow on-the-air updates of control software, these are all inherently insecure and always will be! They tie into systems that need to be air-gapped and only accessible via physical access to the car.
Security is almost always a trade off with utility or convenience. But auto makers have gone way too far, to the point of threatening public safety. These car computer systems need to be redesigned from the ground up with proper security practices and risk assessments in place.
No one wants to steal a Mitsubishi anyway.
if done RIGHT, internet connectivity of the network of devices inside the car has all kinds of benefits.
1) devices that control fuel efficiency can have their firmwares updated by the manufacturer OTA, improving the product without ever taking it to a dealership for service.
2) Anomalies in function can be solved through the same mechanism as 1 above.
3) The obvious: Map data, fine location sensing from know wifi hotspots nearby, cloud data services, and other directly user-facing capabilities.
The issue: These vehicles do NOT do it right. They act like a local wired LAN, with each connected system treating the others as trusted peers, with no challenge/handshake or encryption. There is no digital signature checking on firmware or map data downloads, so man in the middle or local hacks are easy. These are terrible things, done out of cheapness and laxity of consideration for secure designs.
Here's the original source, not a spammy blog, written in broken english:
https://www.pentestpartners.co...
Tesla doesn't have the same engineering model. Most car manufacturers have internal cultures that prize these simple lightweight solutions because they need to design for incredibly low margins. They hire tons of EEs to write software who've never been formally trained in network security. They implement custom unproven protocols for EVERYTHING. Basically everything we've done to make the internet work they ignore and think they know better.
Don't forget it is also a stepping stone technology for a communication backbone for automated driving. Most of the add-on features today are small bites of the autonomous puzzle.
The status quo will not change until CEOs are held criminally liable or terrorists(hackers) start crashing cars into each other.
Yep.
I just can't WAIT for my more connected car...then, my fucking SELF driving car...yeah, nothing can go wrong there....
[rolls eyes] I supposed all these years of me physically driving and being responsible for for the cars behavior, good to throw that all out the window.
I as a human, can't really be hacked remotely like this (I keep my tin foil hat on at all times)....but sure, let's throw that model out, and trust the car companies that so far, have NEVER shown the proclivity to actually secure their systems they have to date....to control our transportation future.
Long Live the Johnny Car!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Have you read the DMCA? Security researching is explicitly exempt.
It was also not done in the USA, so I don't know what the DMCA has to do with it at all.
Yep. This is what happens when you make EEs design network stuff. Stuff like the CAN bus is incredibly open because it wasn't thought of as a network that needed 'security'. If our cars are going to have networks they need to hire people that take care of 'traditional network' security.
1) devices that control fuel efficiency can have their firmwares updated by the manufacturer OTA, improving the product without ever taking it to a dealership for service.
2) Anomalies in function can be solved through the same mechanism as 1 above.
________
Because what I want is someone I don't know fooling around with the car I bought and own any time they want without me knowing it.
That sounds completely logical.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
if done RIGHT, internet connectivity of the network of devices inside the car has all kinds of benefits.
1) devices that control fuel efficiency can have their firmwares updated by the manufacturer OTA, ... without ever taking it to a dealership for service.
Most people do take their car for a routine service anyway. Such updates cannot be that urgent.
2) Anomalies in function can be solved through [firmware updates]
No thanks. I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee and there were some rare cases of the transfer case (TC) putting itself into neutral while parked (the circumstances seemed dubious according to Jeep owners' forums). If the owner had not bothered to apply the handbrake also the car could roll away. Jeep's "solution" to absolve themselves was a software patch to fix the TC in High (ie normal road) ratio. This disabled neutral but also the Low ratio, thus limiting its usefulness as an off-roader etc (I have pulled tree stumps out with mine in "Low").
Result was a load of owners (including me) not wanting to let a dealer plug their car into their computer (which would promptly upload this patch). I generally have the same attitude to car software patches as I have to the Windows 10 "upgrade". And I apply the handbrake when I park.
The EU has recently mandated that new cars need wireless technology so they can automatically dial emergency services in an accident. So now even more cars with have vulnerable wireless links to the outside world that could potentially be exploited by hackers.
It has to do it that way, because it can't get up to 88 mph.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
What happens in 50 years when all cars drive them themselves, are networked and so done want to cripple our infrastructure.
That is simple enough. Require autonomous vehicles to be capable of navigating safely without network connectivity.
Since manually-driven vehicles and autonomous vehicles will coexist for a while, the first networked autonomous vehicles will definitely support an "offline mode" that does not require peer interaction. Simply require that it be kept as a backup in case the network is down.
On top of that, if vehicles can be setup or started in offline mode then it should be fairly simple to stop a worm, mitigate DoS, etc.
We won't magically lose standalone autonomous driving capabilities just because networked vehicles are more efficient.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
4) The vehicle can be remotely disabled/shut-down by the dealer if you don't make your monthly payment on time.
5) The vehicle can be remotely disabled/shut-down by the police if they merely suspect that you might have been remotely connected to a crime. "Shutdown first, and ask questions later".
6) The vehicle can be remotely disabled/shut-down by criminals on the other side of the planet. who demand payment in Bitcoins to re-enable the car.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user